The main objective of this project was to foster the assessment of modern and recent alternatives such as the Tesla turbine which are considered more efficient and definitely lead to improvements concerning the energy utilization and its forward transformation. Likewise; by developing our project, we expect to contribute to the Mechanical engineering School’s mission in the Universidad Industrial de Santander and to implement and develop technologies to support the productive and energetic processes made in our country.
One of the proposed objectives when this project was initially submitted was making a Tesla turbine sample model, through which we could assess and analyse the performance and operation of a Tesla turbine and measure its outcoming power as well.
We decided to start then, the initial design stage of the turbine by researching geometrical known data that might have resulted of previous experiments and attempts of construction in this direction so far. The available capacity for the Tesla turbine to be tested and mounted in the current thermal machines laboratory of our university as well as the design recommendations advised by Ken Rieli (President of PNGinc and founder of Phoenix Turbine Builders Club in Michigan, USA) whose knowledge regarding this topic is quite wide due to their experience in making several turbine models and alternative machines in general, were determined from this consulted documentation.
The original design of the Turbine consists of a set of parallel smooth-texture discs mounted on a shaft and separated from each other by washes distributed along the outer area of such discs. Additionally, it has star-shaped washes strategically located in the narrow spaces between discs, all of them in the inner area of the set of discs. See figure 1.
Figura 1. Tesla Stator’s Assembly
The stator is composed of a set of discs (2 externals and 8 internals), which were made of stainless steel sheets type AISI 304...